


That Unexpected Fateful Hour, Once Again at Hand

by ElegantPi



Category: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:54:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegantPi/pseuds/ElegantPi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Wallace is assigned two new classmates and a task, just before his winter holiday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Unexpected Fateful Hour, Once Again at Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antumbral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antumbral/gifts).



Sometimes, Charles Wallace daydreamed about particles, almost infinitely small, yet so perfectly balanced in mass and behavior that they held together the fabric of his reality. At other times, his imagination sparked at the thought of great galaxies pinwheeling through space, carrying with them myriad stars and planets. Sometimes, he thought about relativity and quantum probability and wondered where the link between the two lay and if maybe he would be one of those who uncovered the next layer in the mysterious tangle that was theoretical physics. And sometimes, he wondered if he could ever reconcile the things he had experienced in childhood with the humdrum existence of almost-adulthood.

Almost-adulthood, because despite reaching the arbitrarily-determined majority age of 21, he was still a college student, graduate student, even, and college students seemed to hover in a nebulous area between dependence and independence, like a Schrödinger cat in a large, well-appointed box. _Not a very good metaphor_ , Charles Wallace thought, laying back on the courtyard lawn of his dorm and closing his eyes against the bright sunlight, _because my state of (in)dependence will be resolved in time, without my ever leaving the box or anyone opening it. Unlike the cat._

 _Sometimes, you think too much,_ Meg kythed at him from wherever in the world she was, _and much too loudly. You should be packing for home, not basking in the sun like a cat._

 _Picking a tiny college on the coast of Southern California certainly has been advantageous in many ways,_ Charles Wallace kythed back, tinging his thoughts with a sense of warm sunlight and contentment.

 _Hush, you,_ Meg replied. _Polly, Charles and I were half frozen under the quilts last night. I wish this old house wasn't so drafty. Father still hasn't gotten around to fitting it up properly with radiators and things._

 _You're home already!_ Charles Wallace was surprised. He had thought he'd be beating Meg and Calvin and his niece and nephew home.

_Calvin's conference in Vespugia wrapped up sooner than we thought, but I came ahead of him with the kids. Someone requested a meeting with him – I forget who, probably a government official – anyway, he's supposed to get here in a day or two. The twins and Rhea and Lucy will be here tomorrow. Mother needs my help, and kything makes me tired._

_See you soon, sis._ Kything might make Meg tired, but she'd gotten much better at it than in years past. Kything was so much more convenient than a phone call, and cheaper, too.

A shadow fell across his face, blocking some of the sun, causing Charles Wallace to open his eyes. "Blajeny!" He jumped to his feet, recognizing his old teacher right away. Beside the tall, dark, grave man stood a young woman about Charles Wallace's age, perhaps a bit older. She was small and darker of skin than Blajeny, a puffy halo of hair surrounding a heart-shaped face. She wore a faded t-shirt and a long, billowy skirt, and sandals.

"Greetings, Charles Wallace," Blajeny said. "You have grown a great deal since last we met."

"I'm still not as tall as the twins," replied Charles Wallace, thinking that Blajeny looked just as tall now as he had fifteen years ago. "But what brings you to California? I would presume that this meeting is not purely social." Looking curiously at the woman beside Blajeny, he added, "I'm Charles Wallace Murry."

"I'm Talia Ngei," she replied, stepping forward and holding out her hand. Charles Wallace took it. Her grip was strong and sure. "We are classmates."

"Oh." Charles Wallace looked at Blajeny.

"Talia is a Knower," Blajeny explained. "She must keep her abilities secret lest the powers of your world capture her and try to use her for their own gains. You have a third classmate, but you must seek him out. The three of you will be classmates for some time to come, but this first assignment for you and Talia – finding the third – is of the utmost urgency. I will leave you to begin, as I, too, have matters of great urgency to see to."

"Wait..." Talia began. Blajeny turned. "How will we speak to you again? How should we contact you?"

"I will find you," the tall man assured her. His shadow lengthened, and then it was gone, and he with it.

Talia and Charles Wallace stared at each other over the place where Blajeny's shadow had fallen. "Well," Charles Wallace began, "What does a Knower do? Will you Know how to find our third classmate?"

Talia folded herself down onto the grass, and Charles Wallace sat down facing her. "I... Know things. Things that are happening now, things that might happen. It is as though I'm walking down a sidewalk, and there are other sidewalks crossing it, and I can see a little way down each one, but I walk in a circle of fog that moves with me. Does that make sense?"

"Somewhat," said Charles Wallace. "Possible futures, that sort of thing."

Talia nodded.

"Does it happen when it wants to happen, or can you control it?"

"Mostly when it wants to, but sometimes, if I concentrate very hard, I can see a little of what is happening in a place that I know about. And I can see through the eyes of people I'm close to, like my sisters, or my mother."

"That sounds a bit like kything," Charles Wallace mused.

"What is that?"

"Communicating with words but without words in a way that distance doesn't matter. I can talk with my sister no matter where she is in the world."

"I don't talk with my sisters," Talia said. "They... don't know about my gifts. But I can connect with them, see through their eyes. Perhaps it works on the same principles as your kything."

"Have you had any Knowing about our classmate, then?"

"Yes," she said, hesitant, "but I don't know how to explain it very well. I saw men and women who looked like soldiers – they carried guns – but they had no uniform or insignia. I saw a man about our age, with sad eyes, talking to a man with red hair. I know that what I saw was Now, or it was the Now of the time when I saw it, two days ago, but I don't know if one of those men was our classmate. That was when Blajeny came for me and told me I was in danger and that my future classmate was in danger."

Charles Wallace thought for a moment. "I want to try and kythe with you," he said. "It's... try to focus on me like you focus on your sisters when you want to see what they're doing. I'll try to connect with you the way I do with my sister. Maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere. Try to show me what you saw."

They stared at one another for a long moment, concentrating. It felt to Charles Wallace like one of the silly children's games like "Light as a Feather" or a ouija board, where everyone waited for something supernatural to happen that would never happen. Talia must have felt something similar, because she tried to suppress a smile. Then Charles Wallace grinned, and she laughed, and they were both laughing.

"Let's try again," Charles Wallace said. "Laughter is good. But maybe we should close our eyes."

He closed his eyes and reached out to her. It was difficult, knowing next to nothing about her. But he thought, _I name you, Talia. You are. I am. We are here together._ A mental click, a connection different from that he had with Meg. He could See what Talia Knew.

Men and women, a dense forest, maybe a jungle. Rough clothes. A young man, dark hair, bright blue eyes. Red hair.

Calvin.

Calvin with a gun to his back, held by the blue-eyed man. Calvin's hands, tied. But Calvin was on his way home from a conference in Vespugia. Except that he wasn't. Meg said he had been delayed.

He reached out for Calvin with his mind. They had kythed before, when Charles Wallace was younger. His eyes snapped open. "I know where they are."

Talia's eyes widened as Charles Wallace grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "What are you doing?"

"Tessering."

He knew he could do it. He'd paid attention when Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Which had done it. He and Father had talked it over, too. But Father had cautioned him not to try it on his own until he'd had more training, and Charles Wallace, who had learned (somewhat) to guard against arrogance, had obeyed. He had never tried to tesser on his own, much less with someone else. But this... He sensed that the need for action was great. Blajeny would not have brought Talia here to Charles Wallace without meaning for them to go together to seek their classmate. Perhaps Blajeny had known that Calvin, too, was in danger. And he had certainly known that Charles Wallace possessed the knowledge and ability to bend time and space to his will.

Hoping that he wouldn't sweep them off to the Moon or Mars by mistake, Charles Wallace smiled a reassurance at Talia, who narrowed her eyes mistrustfully. He reached out to Calvin again, trying not to disturb or startle him but just to feel his mind, his presence, his sense of place. Then, he _wrinkled_. It was like being pulled out of oneself, turned over, and put back into oneself. Meg had described it as being pushed through a barrier. Charles Wallace experienced it as tumbling, a shirt turning inside out in a dryer, sort of like the hypercube animations of the tesseract.

Then, they arrived, he and Talia, hand in hand, and Charles Wallace reached over and clapped his hand over her mouth just as she was about to let out a startled shout. He threw his other hand up to keep Calvin from shouting, who had risen from his seat on the floor of a tent. Calvin stood with his mouth open, his expression changing form surprise to anger.

It was hot in the tent. Sweat popped out on Charles Wallace's forehead. He took his hand from Talia's mouth and nodded to Calvin, who grabbed him and shook him. "What are you _doing_?" he hissed between clenched teeth.

"Rescuing you, I think," Charles Wallace replied.

"What just happened?" Talia whispered. "Where in the name of... where are we?"

"Vespugia?" Charles Wallace said, looking to Calvin for confirmation.

Calvin scowled at him. "Not only have you put yourself in danger, you've brought along a friend? Sport, I thought you'd learned better than to do something so stupid. There are people with guns out there – anti-government rebels who mean business."

"They kidnapped you for ransom?"

"Something like that," Calvin said. "I'm sketchy on the details. All I know is, I was on my way to a meeting, then I got grabbed and shoved in a van, and then I was tied up and marched through the jungle to this camp. We've moved twice in the past two days. Can you tesser us all out again? Like, right now?"

Thinking, searching in himself for... what, he wasn't sure of, Charles Wallace shook his head. "Not right away. I think I need to... recharge. Calvin, before you get angry again..."

"I haven't stopped being angry."

"...well, before your pot boils over, I have to tell you – Blajeny sent me. Us, I mean. This is Talia. She's my classmate."

"Blajeny!" Calvin shook hands with Talia. She looked around and sat down on a pile of burlap sacks.

"We were sent to find our third classmate," Talia said, looking askance at Charles Wallace. "I saw you in my Knowing, but I didn't realize you and Charles Wallace knew each other."

"He's my brother-in-law," Charles Wallace explained.

The tent flap opened abruptly, and a man entered, holding a gun. There was no place to hide, and no time even if a hiding place had been handy. Charles Wallace froze. He heard Talia gasp, and then he, too, recognized the man with the dark hair and the blue eyes.

"What..." the man said. "Who are you? How did you get here?" His gun snapped up, and he waved it between the three of them.

"Please!" Talia said, holding out her hand as if she could stop bullets. Charles Wallace wondered if that were possible. "Blajeny sent us... do you know him?"

The gun lowered a little. "Blajeny," the man repeated. "I... yes, I know him."

"Stefan," Calvin said, "this is my brother and his friend. I think they may have come here looking for you."

Stefan looked troubled.

"Stefan came to the rebels to convince his brother to leave them and go back to his family," Calvin explained. "When his brother was killed, this group of rebels forced him to take his brother's place. We have been trying to come up with a solution to both our problems."

"It is true," Stefan nodded. "They would have killed me if I had not taken up my brother's gun. But I don't want this." He put the weapon on the ground. "I don't think there is any way out for me, however."

"We have a way out," Talia said. "Charles Wallace can get us all out. We just need time."

Stefan looked at all three of them in turn, his expression one of plain disbelief.

"Keep us secret for a day and a night," Charles Wallace said. "After that, come here to this tent, and we'll all go together."

"We would never get past the guards," Stefan protested.

"Please," Talia said. "Trust us." She edged close to him and took her hand in his. Then she reached for Charles Wallace's hand. He guessed what she was trying to do and reached for her mind. Together, they reached out for Stefan, who gasped.

 _Who are you?_ he kythed. _I have only spoken this way with my brother before now._

_We are your classmates. We are your friends. Trust us._

_I trust you._

_We trust you._

Calvin cleared his throat. "You should go, before they get suspicious."

"Yes," Stefan agreed. He picked up his gun. "I will bring some extra blankets, but they will have to share your meal. The others would be suspicious, else."

"We'll be ok," said Charles Wallace.

Stefan brought the blankets, and the food was not at all to Charles Wallace's taste, so he was just as happy not to have much of it. Talia shook her head at Calvin's offering of the plate. "I'll wait, thank you."

Sleep came slowly and lightly, and Charles Wallace nearly jumped out of his skin when Talia touched him on the shoulder halfway through the night. "What is it?"

"Soldiers," she whispered. He could hear the fear in her voice. "Real soldiers, Vespugian, I guess. Uniforms. They don't know Calvin is here. They're going to attack the camp. Charles Wallace, they could kill us, not knowing we're not with the rebels. They _will_ kill Stefan."

"They _will_ kill him?" Charles Wallace threw his blanket aside and sat up. "You saw that?"

"It is a Possible," she replied. "It isn't certain – but it seemed so likely."

Calvin was awake now, and he crept across the small tent to huddle with them. "What's up?"

"Vespugian soldiers are coming, but they don't know you're here," Charles Wallace told him. "If we're going to go, we have to go now."

"Can you?" Calvin asked.

"I'll have to, won't I? But first, I have to get Stefan."

"I'll go," Calvin said.

"No," Talia said. "They would notice you in a second. I will go."

Charles Wallace considered. "Talia, I would say that we should both go, but I think you should stay here. Not because I don't think you could rescue Stefan but because I need you to tell Calvin if I fail. You'll Know, either way... and you two both need to get out if you can. No one but Stefan has seen me – I'll have the element of surprise either way. Or maybe I can blend in."

"No," Calvin said.

Talia reached for Charles Wallace's hand. Kything swiftly, she showed him where she saw Stefan in her Knowing, a tent some distance from theirs. "I have it," he told her.

He peeled up the back edge of the tent and peered out. No guard at the back, and the night was dark, or the trees overhead blocked out the moonlight and starlight. Wriggling on his belly, he crawled free and tried to get his bearings. It was sheer luck that he was looking in the other direction when the first flashbang grenade exploded at the edge of the camp.

All hell broke loose then. Men and women boiled out of tents and out of the trees. Charles Wallace knew he had no chance of finding Stefan's tent now. He would have to find the man and get him safely back to the tent.

The first gunshots rang out at the other end of the camp. Charles Wallace grabbed an abandoned lantern and held it before him. Smoke drifted among the tents. Someone slammed into him, knocking him over. He was struggling to his feet when he felt Stefan calling for him.

 _Come to the tent_ , Charles Wallace kythed, frantically. _We have to go now!_

Wordlessly, he knew that Stefan was making his way toward them. Charles Wallace moved back to the tent and huddled beside it, waiting. He saw a lantern bobbing toward them, and then the ground exploded.

Stefan, sprawling, airborne. Colliding with a tree.

Charles Wallace sprang toward him, crouching as low as he could. Gunfire was close, now. He looped his arms underneath Stefan's armpits and dragged him back to the tent. "Calvin!" he hissed, pulling at the tent's bottom. Calvin dragged Stefan inside, and Charles Wallace wriggled in after him.

"I need you to kythe with Meg," he said.

"She's too upset, with everything that's happened," Calvin protested. "I can't..."

"You must. Talia, I need you to help me, too. Just... do what you do when you kythe. Hold onto me, and hold onto Stefan. This might be a bumpy ride."

 _Charles Wallace?_ Meg's kythe was frantic, panicked.

_It's ok, Meg. We're coming home. The star-watching rock. Kythe with Calvin. I need to be able to feel where to take everyone. And... if you can help me..._

_Oh, Charles... Oh, Calvin..._

_Help to guide us home, Meg..._

Like boulders being tumbled in a great drum, crushing against one another. Turning, turning... Like a violent rockslide. Charles Wallace felt as though his body had slammed into the ground after a fall of several stories. He picked himself up off the ground, dazed. He felt drained, so tired.

"Calvin?"

"Here, sport. Talia and Stefan, too, but..."

Charles Wallace looked around. Talia was kneeling in snow, Stefan's head in her lap. They were beside the star-watching rock. A clear, cold night. The stars overhead, so bright.

"We made it," he breathed. Thankful. So thankful.

_Meg..._

_We're coming..._

"Charles Wallace, help me," Talia said.

He knelt beside her and put his hands over her hands as they rested on Stefan's shoulders.

_Stefan. We are here. We are together._

_No..._

A nightmare. He'd come to bring his brother home, but Diego had refused, so he stayed. Stuck by Diego's side even when his brother yelled at him to go away, go home before he got killed. Then... the sharp crack of the gunshot, and Diego fell back, hit the ground before he could catch him. So much blood. No, no, no, no, no...

Pick up the gun. Come with us.

No.

We'll kill you.

No.

But he wanted to live. They watched him. He could not escape. But he lived.

A tall dark man came to his tent. Told him to watch and wait.

The man made no promises, but in his shadow Stefan saw hope.

They brought the red-haired man to the camp. Calvin. Stefan was set to guard him. Then the other two.

_We are here. You are safe. Come with us._

_I cannot._

_You can. Please. We need you._

Talia and Charles Wallace opened their eyes, looked down at Stefan. Slowly, his eyes opened. He stared up at them, then looked around. His eyes widened, and Charles Wallace looked up.

Calvin, Meg, Sandy, Dennys, Mother and Father – all staring at the three of them. Talia and Charles Wallace helped Stefan to his feet. He had a gash in his forehead.

Mrs. Murry said, "Come up to the house, and we'll fix up that cut. Alex will drive you to the emergency room if it needs stitches."

Meg looked cross, bundled into a heavy shawl. Calvin had his arm around her shoulders, and she had both arms around his waist. "Honestly, Charles. We're all freezing."

"Don't keep your friends sitting out in the cold," Dennys said.

"Plus, there's dinner," Sandy added.

"Enough Christmas pudding for two more, Mother?" Charles Wallace asked, impishly.

Mrs. Murry pursed her lips and gave him a stern, fond look. "Introductions can wait until we're all warm again," she said, and she and Mr. Murry led the way to the house.

Talia and Charles Wallace supported Stefan between them. He didn't seem to be hurt much more than the gash and a bump on the head, but they could feel that he was shaken to his core and needed the support. A movement among the trees caught Charles Wallace's eye.

"We'll be along in a minute," he said, steering Talia and Stefan to the star-watching rock. "Stefan needs to sit down a minute."

"Don't be long," Mr. Murry called over his shoulder. "Explanations will most certainly be in order, shortly."

"Yes, Father."

Once the others had gone on ahead, Stefan spoke, his arms still around their shoulders, as though he didn't want to let go. "I did not really need to sit down," he said.

"I know, but look," Charles Wallace replied. "Besides, I really did need to sit down. I don't think I can make it up to the house." His legs felt rubbery, and his head pounded with a fierce headache.

Blajeny strode across the field towards them, his shadow stretching out behind him, rippling in the watery starlight.

"Well done," he said. "Now, rest and wait. There is much to be done, but the next task is some ways off." He laid a hand on each of their heads in turn. Charles Wallace felt his headache lift, his energy restored. "Keep each other safe," Blajeny commanded. And in a flicker of starlight, he was gone again.

Stefan, Charles Wallace, and Talia looked at each other. "I don't know about you two," said Charles Wallace, "but I am starving."

"And I am cold. I'm wearing sandals," Talia reminded him.

They all laughed.

Arms around each other, the three classmates hurried through the starlight towards the old farmhouse, its windows bright with light and warmth.


End file.
